As I settled down from a busy week in the jungle it was great to be back in the city and able to relax in a air conditioned room, my mind settled on the fact that the problems with logistics and safety were over. I opened my computer thinking that I would write on the blog but decided that I would check E-Mail first.
The first E-mail read: Flight Cancelled - Contact Your Local Office. The elections in Peru mandated that airlines cancel all flights on Saturday. I'm not too sure how a presidential election would require that everything in a country stop, but that’s what happened. The stores were closed, the airlines canceled flights and the entire country focused on the election. I can't figure out why this was a surprise to the airlines but they sold us the tickets during the work stoppage.

We were now rushed and the time to relax had to be delayed. I phoned the airline and managed to secure 12 seats but that left me with ticket and no way out... but a friend in the airport that managed to get me the 2nd to last seat on another airline. All that to say I had been delayed at getting out information on the Missions Conference.

So...Stats, 788 miles on the Amazon transferring people and equipment. 6 round trips from Nauta to Santa Rita. 27 Churches represented, 25 communities, 2400 meals served, 276 pastors, leaders and families. Our attendance was lower than expected due to the compulsory voting laws in Peru. (One lesson learned) But God knew and our food equaled the number of people perfectly. To the last detail everything went perfectly, that’s not to say there weren’t changes and a couple of glitches but each and everyone on the team took up the challenges of the tasks without a single issue.

We had moved the teams up river prior to the conference for 3 days, I set some to be leaders and left tasks to do and each time I returned up river I was completely blown away at the amount of work completed and way each one had become connected to the others. Never have I seen so much done by a team in such a short time. I would have never imagined that bringing 25 people together and with 1/3 of them not knowing the others would they have all meshed so perfectly. It really was a God thing……

The first group were building bunk beds and painting, the second; painting and cleaning, all of the tasks were done and the mission center was 100% ready when our guests arrived.

The voting in Peru is madatory, so all residents must return to their place of registry to vote or be fined 100 dollars. That made attendence to the seminar lower that anticipated. None the less, God had His chosen 276 people attend. Billy Powell, Carlos Arstoga, Jim Bates, Larry Reynolds and Jorge Arevalo all did amazing jobs at teaching. They all flexed with the changes and managed to work together evey step of the way.

Praying with the Pastors

We learned so much, developed deep relationships with the brothers in the jungle and the other team members. If I could have asked God for a particular outcome it wouldn't have been this great. Thats not to say there wasn't logistical issues, there was. Like running at night on the Amazon. Nothing quite matches the darkness in the jungle or the amount of trash in the river. If you have a spot light on to see the trash you can't tell where your going, you can't see the river bank. If you turn out the lights then you can just make out a slight difference between the trees and the sky, giving you a rough idea of where the river is going. Can't win...

Anyway lots to do and will get more details soon. Keep praying, God has done a mighty work, mostly due to your deep and ferverent prayers.

I have a decent connection tonight so, even though its late I thought I would give you a run down. The last two days have been running from Nauta to Santa Rita with teams and cargo. The day before yesterday was cargo and Ed Alm, I left him with the goods and said, "please have some beds made by the time we're back." Yesterday we ran the 90 miles or so with the folks from St Louis, and three from Bellingham. We were really heavy so we didn't get to Santa Rita until 4:30. We off loaded the gear, said sorry, wired up a spot light and headed home. The poor boat got the you-know-what=run out of it, I had only so much light and wanted to close the gap to Nauta before the sun closed the door on me. We ended up running about 1.5 hours in the dark....NOT FUN. The water is full of logs, you can only tell where you're going by turning off all lights and only after your eyes adjust can you barely tell the difference between trees, water and sky. Today we had one extra hour by the time we left, again wide open through the logs and sticks and we pulled into Nauta just as the light left us. One more day of this...Then the conference. Be praying, one small church up river (100 miles) said they would bring 40 people...lets see we invited 70 churches x 40 = ...?? don't think about it.

Culture Shock
We didn't get out of Iquitos today. Didn't get a permit to travel up river until 3pm. Our goal is to leave at 8am and run to Santa Rita tomorrow. ---No Plans Survive The Jungle---- We managed to finish all the shopping. Paint, parts, more food, plastic plates on and on. Pray as we had a clash of wills already. We ended up recognizing the enemy at work and prayed through it. I think all is well.

This is our plan..... run to Santa Rita, start work come back on Friday to Nauta. Saturday at 6 am I will take a taxi to the Airport and get the first group, we hired a bus to take us to Nauta, I will then run up river with the group drop them off and get them settled, head back to Nauta. Do it again, then again......

I'm not sure when I can post again, I will be in Nauta for a few nights waiting for groups and I'm not sure if they have an internet connection there......

The first day we were here here was mostly getting some further loose ends pulled together on the boat, we fixed a vent issue, serviced the engine and purchased spare parts. Its a constant struggle to force myself to spend money on "just in case" issues, things like a spare propeller. We don't need it but if we did we would be in a world of hurt if we didn't have it. We bought the prop.

We also arranged for a carpenter to build bunk-beds. He was to have a sample for us to view the next day, we went by his shop and he had the first one done, so we made a deal with him to finish all 10 of the beds and he will deliver them to Santa Rita and assemble them for us by Friday.

We also managed to order cushions for the boat and those were finished today.

The big issue was buying food, we at last decided to get our cook, Felix, to help us shop. After 8 hours and stops at the Peruvian version of Costco and its antithesis in the farmers market, we purchased 1000 lbs of rice, 200 lbs of beans, 100 lbs of sugar, 100 lbs of dried fish, 50 lbs of noodles, 100 boxes of fruit juice 50 lbs of potatoes, on and on and on..........

The greatest frustrations come from dealing in the culture; they wouldn't consider stopping at the next closest place to get an item. No; its almost like as we are going down the list we travel from one side of town to the other, getting the stuff in the order on our shopping list without reading down and seeing what the next item is. Without exaggeration we must have put 250 miles in today and the same yesterday. Lucho even joked, "I need to plan ahead like a gringo.." Its really hard to get anything done here......

Our current plan is to head up river tomorrow.....we'll see...

Be praying.. we had wished to buy food as gifts but we are killing our budget. Pastor Javier would rather purchase gasoline as gifts. Still have a lot done. Got to go, this internet connection stinks, about every 10 minutes I have to walk down the hall and reboot the router.......

You don't understand spiritual warfare until you embark on a quest to take ground from the enemy. Our day to day lives don't normally produce any resistance from satan because for the most part we aren't any threat to him. Once we get out of our crazy lives long enough to attempt something for God, then we experience the enemy pushing back. From personal experience I know that for the most part I can live out my life without too much problem, its only when we chase after one of these adventures for God do we see the enemies hand.

Recently I had to ask myself if these things that happen are really from the enemy....Is it possible that God is just cleaning the slate so all things are in the open, or is it that its the enemy trying to clean my clock and knock me down?

I write this as I sit waiting for my flight to leave Seattle. We have experienced my back going out last week, some family revelations that caused us deep concern, there was a fire in Miami that canceled our flight to Lima, on and on.

In Seattle going through the security I had made the obvious mistake of taking a thermal mug in my carry on. That set off a chain of events that allowed me to see what all the pat-down fuss was about and getting my hands swabbed, then the swab was run through a flux-capacitor, registering the possibilities that either I had been building explosives or using hand moisturizer......

Once through security, I had to follow up on what Ed Alm told me. Ed called and said that his flight was canceled. It concerned me because his flight was my flight from Miami on... Ed said there was a fuel depot fire and they weren't running flights through Miami, I asked in Seattle and they said "no problem", I asked again in Miami and they said "no problem" when I landed in Miami, I asked again, "no problem". It wasn't until the flight did the anounce. "due to a fuel problem we will be running a little late." Oh well....

We do these things in complete trust in God or we would be fools, its His mission, His responsibility and under His protection that we proceed.

Keep checking here to see whats up, I will update this as we go. Follow us also at
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"Buenos Tacos" is our standard greeting when Lucho (our Junglemaster director in Peru) and I phone each other...its a code for "all is well"....This time, what I heard was, "Tomas, I need to tell you something....... (my heart sank, I knew something was wrong)............... "Leandro is in the hospital, he is very sick."

"Oh no, please Jesus no", I prayed..........you see; I felt like I let Leandro down.....Leandro is 11 years old and the son of one of our staff members in Peru. Leandro is very small for 11 because has a hole in his heart from a birth defect.

Last year I started to look into getting him help but ran up against walls and down dead ends. By May we were suffering from our own financial issues and I was scrambling to find ways to fix our own problems, The fact is I just plain dropped the ball.

I was Praying hard, "Lord strengthen him so we can get him help, I won't let him down again. please Jesus get him through this".....I told Lucho to do whatever he had to do to help, somehow God will provide, its the right thing to do and God will honor that...... but we can't let Leandro down.

For three days, Leandro struggled to survive, the Doctors were doing everything a jungle hospital could do, I called Lucho twice a day to check on Leandro. On Sunday I got word, Leandro was better. Lucho called it a miracle, the Doctors weren't sure why he was getting better. If you have ever been in a hospital in Iquitos you would agree it had to be the hand of God that made Leandro better.

Today Leandro is back home. I sent Lucho to Lima to ask if they can fix the problem there and how much it would cost. The social medicine in Peru doesn't cover heart operations..Lima has McDonalds and Burger kings, they must have heart surgeons...

Then... think of who you know, what connections you have and how we can save Leandros life. I decided the moment that I heard he was in the hospital that all the Missions Conferences, mission trips, outboard motors, buildings and stuff didn't make any difference if we didn't do everything possible to help Leandro...........

Little guys like Leandro is why we do missions, its not just the core of what we do, its the heart of all we do.